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A Kansas lawyer allegedly used a spy cam iPhone app to take upskirt photos of his female employees

It's time to start the nomination process for creepiest boss of the year. Here's our first nominee: In December, three law firm employees in Kansas sued their boss for invasion of privacy and "outrage." They alleged that personal injury attorney Jeremiah Johnson encouraged them to wear "skirts and high heels" and then surreptitiously placed an iPhone (or iPad) under their desks with a delightful app called Cam-u-flage, "the best spy camera app to take pictures without anyone noticing." The app has a "timer function" that happens to work perfectly for this sort of thing.

Brooke Bashaw, Katie Sellers, and Lauren Spalsbury allege that the secret upskirt shooting started sometime in June 2011. "The recordings were directed at the Plaintiffs' legs, lower torso, and allowed anyone viewing the recordings to see Plaintiffs' legs and between their legs to the undergarments," says their complaint filed in district court in Kansas. The unwilling film stars are claiming damages of $75,000 each.

They realized it was happening, says lawyer Scott Waddell, when one of them found the camera under the desk. Apparently they were able to see and delete the photos, because Jeremiah Johnson responded to their lawsuit with a legal complaint of his own. In what may be the most tone-deaf counterclaim of all time, he accused the three of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by "delet[ing] data from his iDevices without authorization."

Evan Brown at Internet Cases reports that the judge dismissed Johnson's CFAA counterclaim because he failed to identify which data exactly was deleted. Perhaps because it would have been incriminating?

Our smartphones can be transformed into fairly powerful little spying devices. Beyond the surreptitious photo-taking app, Cam-u-flage, there's Night Recorder -- an iPhone app that can be left in standby mode and will turn itself on to record noise if it hears a sound. It's meant for people who want to record their sleep-talking, snoring or other nighttime noises, but there are obviously other nefarious uses for such an app. There's also Mobile Spy, an app that will "silently monitor your child or employee's text messages, GPS locations, calls, photos and more."

The possibilities for being uber creepy in the digital age are seemingly as endless as the argument over whether women should wear high heels or flats at the office.